AUBURN – KIDS Consortium has announced that Anne Leonard of Manchester, Conn., will join the staff as an AmeriCorps*VISTA member for 2008-09. Leonard is part of a larger statewide team of AmeriCorps*VISTA members organized by Communities for Children and Youth, a statewide initiative of the Maine Children’s Cabinet working to promote positive child and youth development.

Leonard will work with KIDS Consortium staff on several projects related to service-learning in grades kindergarten to 12 schools in Maine.

Service-learning is a teaching strategy that connects classroom academics with community service projects. Leonard will focus on creating information and organizing introductory trainings for community members interested in involving themselves with the KIDS model of service-learning.

In addition, she will assist with fundraising efforts and will reach out to local community organizations and interested school districts with populations of children and youth at increased risk of poverty to encourage partnerships around service-learning projects.

KIDS Consortium is based in Auburn. It works with teachers, administrators and students to involve students in addressing challenges faced by their communities.

Together they identify, research and work to address local community needs. With guidance from the consortium, teachers match those projects to school curricula.

Leonard is a 2005 graduate from Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania where she majored in English and women’s studies. For the past two years, she has been humanities curator at the Lutz Children’s Museum in Connecticut.

To learn more about AmeriCorps*VISTA and teams organized by Communities for Children and Youth, visit www.mainevista.net. For more information about KIDS Consortium and service-learning, visit www.kidsconsortium.org.